Umalis Uli Ako

Well, here I am finally.

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. On a postgraduate program. School starts on the 24th of July.

I should be overjoyed, excited, nervous (in the good way), looking forward to things. Right now, 19th of July, 11:23pm Sydney time, alone in my dorm on an Internet connection that charges four Australian cents a megabyte, I’m feeling none of them. I’m missing my one year in Beijing to an extent I never thought possible. What I’d give to be there again. And what I’d give to just finally get over it.

Maybe it’s because I’m exhausted from running around campus attending orientation programs and getting lost. Maybe it’s the weather – it’s winter in Australia and the rain in Sydney is terrible and makes 14C colder than what it really is.

Or maybe because the transition was too quick. I left Beijing just nine days ago.What surprises me most of all is why I suddenly care about circumstances making Sydney seem personal or impersonal. The troubling part is that I was so much less concerned when I first arrived in Beijing. I always felt I had something to occupy my time. I just knew what I was going to do for the day and did them, and they never involved others.

So, now I have a heart and I’m in Sydney, and believe me, it’s subjecting me to everything that makes it vulnerable. Gosh, I feel sorry for people with hearts.
Geez. Well, I haven’t eaten in the cafeteria in the dorm yet anyway, didn’t really have a chance to meet the people here yet, since I arrived in Sydney yesterday and just moved in this morning. Of course I’m going to give it a chance, no doubt about that. Just that right now, I really do wish I were somewhere else, somewhere north of here.